Reminiscence
by waychester
Summary: The sky was slowly becoming tainted by the shadows, folding in upon itself and consuming everything within its path, and yet he could only sit and speculate on how ominously gorgeous the world looked as it was being torn apart.


**A/N: **I'm not even going to explain this.

..But for those of my readers who have read some of my other stories, and are anticipating the next chapter in a certain story that is long overdue, I am going to tell you this: it is on it's way. I just recovered from writer's block and this is absolutely the only thing that I was able to write.

Donnie Darko belongs to Richard Kelly.

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><p>His eyes were vacant, his smile nothing but a peculiar echo upon his lips.<p>

The sky danced a tantalizing pattern before him, clouds swirling dangerously, everything appearing as a blur, etched against a sky that had once been so pristinely blue not only a few days earlier. The boy sat there atop the hood of a run-down automobile, electric blue orbs gazing out upon the mysteriously looming storm, and he wondered absently: would he ever see the sky so blue again, as it once was?

And when the truth hit him, he had to clamp his teeth down onto his lower lip in order to bite back a sardonic sort of laugh, expression bordering on almost unsettlingly calm, and yet at the same time, sickeningly amused. _No_, he thought derisively, _I won't._

Though, he had to admit, this wasn't such a bad view either. As the sky continued to simmer and bleed, torrents of obsidian mist pouring from its newly opened wound, the boy couldn't help but think how terribly beautiful such a sight was. The sky was slowly becoming tainted by the shadows, folding in upon itself and consuming everything within its path, and yet he could only sit and speculate on how ominously gorgeous the world looked as it was being torn apart; intimidating tufts of smoky black, frantically moving towards each other, twisting and turning, _dancing…_ waltzing ..

The end of the world had never looked more beautiful.

At this moment, the boy wanted to laugh, wanted to smile, wanted to scream towards the heavens and sob his heart out simultaneously. Though for some strange reason, he found he could do nothing but look out upon the sky with a blank expression. Maybe there was just too much for him to feel. Maybe he was numb. Maybe all of that shock and turmoil he had felt from the past 28 days had fermented and settled into an almost eerie sort of calm by this point…And maybe it didn't even matter at all.

What was the use of sorting out his emotions now, anyway? The boy almost scoffed at the thought. Emotions didn't hold much significance any longer. Not when he had already quite clearly fallen into the Ensurance Trap. Not when his path was so meticulously set. As the Living Receiver, he had come to the understanding that there really was no other choice for him than to do what simply had to be done.

Quite bluntly put, he had to construct a time portal out of water, use telekinesis to tear the jet engine off of the very plane in which his mother and sister traveled, and send the Artifact- this 'jet engine'- back in time to the day the Tangent Universe had first been created.

…Easy, right?

…Right.

Admittedly, it actually _wouldn't _be too difficult for the boy to do such a thing. As the Living Receiver, he was granted such staggering powers, powers that allowed him to complete the aforementioned tasks easily, _effortlessly,_ even.

But that didn't mean he wanted to.

…What? Hadn't anyone ever considered that?

Well, it was the truth. Though, it wasn't that he wanted to watch the world burn. It wasn't that he wanted to watch the whole universe become deconstructed before his eyes, laughing scornfully in the face of God all the while. No, that wasn't the case at all.

The fact of the matter was…he was afraid.

Ha. Fear. What a petty thing.

What was he afraid of? Death, of course. What sensible person (not to say that he was really considered 'sensible', but that was beside the point) wouldn't be? Despite the fact that he knew it was the right thing, that if he didn't…do what he had to do once he was sent back to the Primary Universe everything would be sent into a continuous loop…he was still _afraid._

Because…because he was alone.

_Every living creature on this earth dies alone._

It was at that moment that the boy realized the truth to that statement. Once again, he had to reign in another bout of laughter.

Alone. He had always been alone.

Well…no matter it all now. Was there a choice? No. There wasn't. There was no use dwelling on senseless emotions that wouldn't really matter in the next couple of minutes either way. Besides….how could one be afraid of what was already bound to happen? Why fear something that was destiny? There was no denying its existence either way, so why fear it if you knew it was going to happen? What was the point? It was simply a waste of time.

Then again, human emotion was irrational. Complex. And didn't quite make much sense. ….He would know. He _was_ a human.

…And now he was just rambling within his thoughts. Contemplating emotion. Crap. He had hoped to avoid doing that.

Yet... even so, even considering all of this, the boy did not yet take any sudden action. He did not begin 'constructing the portal', did not say or do a single thing. He simply lingered there for a moment, gazing almost thoughtfully out upon the bleeding sky and just… watched.

Watched the world fall apart.

…It was funny. The boy had never once noticed how absolutely beautiful the world was until now. Not until it was ending.

And after studying the scene for longer than he probably should have, he took a deep, shuddering breath, and closed his eyes. He couldn't afford to break down. Not when the world itself was already doing that.

Subsequently, the boy with the sapphire eyes made the first sign of movement he had in quite some time. He eased himself off of the car's hood, bounding down onto his feet in one swift movement and edging over towards the driver's side of the car. And as he hopped in, and caught a glimpse of the unresponsive body of the girl he once loved lying limp and lifeless in the passenger side of the car, he smiled.

Donnie Darko smiled.

Closed his eyes.

And prepared himself to stitch the world back together again.

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><p><strong>AN: **Short and pointless.

Thanks for reading, if ya did. Chapter one of Sonrisa is on it's way guys, I promise. ;;


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